luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 19, 2025

No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

Canucks at Capitals, Oct 19, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Canucks beat the Capitals 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Canucks win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 24 points of win probability to the Canucks.

The biggest swing (P1, 2:49 left): Tyler Myers scored on a wrist shot from 13 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Canucks.

Final

Vancouver Canucks 4
Washington Capitals 3

October 19, 2025 · Capital One Arena

Luck index +59 Canucks lucky · −59 Capitals

Each team’s own shots from this game, resampled into new games 4,000 times, each a goal at its chance, with the power plays the penalties gave and the pulled goalie at the end: with the way both teams actually played, how often does this performance win? How the replay works

Ten replays. Canucks win 4, Capitals win 6.

  1. 1 VAN 5 WSH 2
  2. 2 VAN 5 WSH 3
  3. 3 VAN 4 WSH 3
  4. 4 VAN 3 WSH 2
  5. 5 VAN 3 WSH 4
  6. 6 VAN 3 WSH 4
  7. 7 VAN 4 WSH 6
  8. 8 VAN 5 WSH 8
  9. 9 VAN 0 WSH 3
  10. 10 VAN 1 WSH 6

Three other ways to ask

Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.

No closing line for this game.

Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.

Every shot redrawn at its chance, overtime and the shootout replayed as near coin flips; the shots themselves and every call fixed. The narrowest view of luck.

How 4,000.1 replays ended

Canucks win 41% of them, Capitals 59%. The line is what actually happened: Canucks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canucks by 3+13.4%
Canucks by 28.4%
Canucks by 119.6%
Capitals by 120.9%
Capitals by 212.4%
Capitals by 3+25.2%

Where the luck was

What the luck was worth

Every lucky and unlucky play, weighted by the moment it happened: its swing in win probability, added up by kind. A post hit in a blowout counts for nothing; the same post with a minute left in a tie game can be most of a win.

Swings add up across a game, so in one that went back and forth they can pass 100%. On the scoreboard the same luck was worth +1.9 goals to the Canucks: the final margin was Canucks by 1, without the luck Capitals by 0.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canucks3542.55+1.45
Capitals6034.04−1.04

Regulation with both goalies in. Expected goals: our model of each shot’s chance from where and how it was taken (distance, angle, shot type, rebound, rush, strength), adjusted for the shooter’s and the goalie’s records. A team above expected finished better or met a weaker night in goal; 75% of the gap counts as luck (why that share).

Calls

Every penalty that put a team on the power play, and every goal taken off the board on review, with what it did to the helped team’s chance of winning at that moment. Calls don’t count toward luck by default: who draws penalties repeats from game to game like a skill (how calls are valued). Switch them on below.

WhenCallWin probability for
P1 9:37 High sticking on the Canucks (Filip Chytil): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P1 2:49 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power play +3% VAN
P1 0:24 Hooking on the Capitals (Dylan Strome): 2 minutes on the power play +2% VAN
P2 10:04 Tripping on the Canucks (Evander Kane): 2 minutes on the power play +1% WSH
P2 7:47 Interference goalkeeper on the Canucks (Arshdeep Bains): 2 minutes on the power play +1% WSH
P2 0:00 Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Capitals (Nic Dowd): 2 minutes on the power play +1% VAN
P3 14:15 Hooking on the Canucks (Filip Hronek): 2 minutes on the power play +1% WSH
P3 5:25 Tripping on the Capitals (Justin Sourdif): 2 minutes on the power play +2% VAN

When it happened

Capitals’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.

Our in-game win probability: the score and the time left, starting from the betting line (or the home edge alone when there is none), with goals at the league’s rates for the score. Overtime is drawn at a fixed width. Shaded above the middle while the Capitals were ahead in it, below while the Canucks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:01 Elias Pettersson scored on a wrist shot from 21 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% VAN –
2 P1 8:57 Tom Wilson missed the net with a slap shot from 17 feetShooting · 26% chance +5% VAN –
3 P1 2:49 Tyler Myers scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 10% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +17% VAN –
4 P1 2:08 Kiefer Sherwood scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 22% chance +8% VAN –
5 P2 15:06 Teddy Blueger scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 13% chance +4% VAN –
6 P3 2:14 John Carlson scored on a snap shot from 57 feetShooting · 2% chance +7% WSH –
7 P3 0:30 Jakob Chychrun missed the net with a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 17% chance +8% VAN –
8 P3 0:01 Alex Ovechkin’s deflected shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 13% chance +7% VAN –

Adjust the assumptions

Think finishing is more skill than we do, or that the calls were luck? Change it and the coin-flip replay reruns in your browser.

Only coin-flips re-rolled

Canucks 26% · Capitals 74%

Final margin
Canucks by 1
Luck in goals
1.9 for the Canucks
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 0.9
Replay with same day's form
Canucks 41% · Capitals 59% unchanged: why
How much of each is luck?

0% treats it as skill, 100% as pure luck. The tick is our fit.

What counts
Flip a play

Force the other outcome, in this game and in every replay: a goal becomes a save, a post goes in, a penalty goes the other way.

About these numbers

Play-by-play from the NHL via fastRhockey; expected goals, in-game win probability and the replays are our own models, fitted on every game since 2018-19 (methodology and validation). Blocked shots aren’t replayed (their location is the block’s, not the shot’s). No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

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